Stephen Leather - False Friends

‘Yeah, well, neither of us will be around to see that.’

‘But that’s my point,’ said Sharpe. ‘Maybe we should be trying to speed things up.’

Shepherd shook his head. ‘Now you’ve lost me.’

‘Look, here’s the thing,’ said Sharpe. ‘Would it be so bad if we became a Muslim country? Because if you look into it, it’s not that bad for us guys. In fact, on balance, my life would be better.’

‘Now you’re being ridiculous.’

‘Hear me out,’ he said. ‘Under Islamic law men get to run things again. No more women bosses, no more female home secretaries, no more Charlotte Buttons breaking our balls. No more foul-mouthed chavs screaming in the street. And I’m all for covering the faces of the ugly ones when they’re out in public. The roads would be a lot safer as well, if they were prevented from driving. Women would do what women should be doing: staying at home and bringing up the kids. And we could have more than one wife too. Think how well that would work. You could have one as a cook, one as a cleaner, one for the bedroom, and one. .’ He struggled to find a reason for a fourth wife. ‘Anyway, you get my drift.’

‘You’re mad,’ said Shepherd.

‘Even the booze thing isn’t a problem,’ continued Sharpe. ‘We had a group of Algerian cops over doing an undercover course at Bramshill. Drank like fishes. And the Turks are Muslims but they brew a good beer. The only downside that I can see is bacon.’

‘Bacon?’

‘The pork thing. I love bacon butties and crackling and I wouldn’t want to give that up. But the prayer thing isn’t a problem. Look at those bastards who keep taking cigarette breaks — everything stops while they go out for a smoke. Well, I’d be happy enough to take five breaks a day for a lie-down.’

‘You don’t lie down, you soft bastard. You kneel and pray.’

‘You know what I mean,’ said Sharpe. ‘I’m just saying that five prayers a day is no hardship. And giving ten per cent of your money to charity is a good thing. Especially if that meant lower taxes. And putting women back in the home means that unemployment would go right down, which is great for the economy.’

‘Please tell me this is a joke, Razor,’ said Shepherd. ‘You’re starting to worry me.’

‘But the really great thing is the whole shariah law business. An eye for an eye. Now you tell me that the UK wouldn’t benefit from a policy of removing the right hands of thieves. Or castrating rapists. And I’d definitely go for beheading some of the scumbags I’ve put away rather than them doing twelve years in a cushy jail before being sent home to their families.’

‘And stoning adulterers?’

Sharpe scowled. ‘I’m not saying that there aren’t some negative aspects, but on balance I think there are advantages to shariah law. Plus, in every Muslim country I know of, the police are respected.’

‘Feared, you mean.’

Sharpe shrugged. ‘Fear or respect, they don’t spit in your face and get away with it like they do in this country.’

‘Come on, Razor. Corruption is rife in all those countries. You can buy your way out of their prisons, and the rich get away with murder.’

‘No system’s perfect,’ said Sharpe. ‘I’m just saying that perhaps we shouldn’t be fighting an Islamification that is going to happen eventually. Maybe we should start embracing it.’

‘Allahu akbar,’ said Shepherd.

‘Indeed,’ said Sharpe. ‘Fancy a curry?’

‘I thought a kebab would be more your thing after your Road to Damascus moment,’ said Shepherd.

‘No, mate, a curry and a couple of Kingfishers is what I need.’ He grinned. ‘Mind you, have you noticed that you never see women serving in curry houses? There’re no bolshy waitresses; it’s always guys. I’m sure that’s a Muslim thing.’

‘Razor, I swear to God, if you turn up for work in a man dress tomorrow I’m off this case.’ He grinned. ‘Okay, a curry it is. There’re a couple of good places in the centre of Hereford. Soon as we’ve dropped the guns off at the barracks we’ll swing by before we head back to London.’

Shepherd waited until he was back in his Hampstead flat before phoning Charlotte Button.

‘Kudos, Spider, that couldn’t have gone better,’ she said.

‘You got sound and video?’

‘We got everything. Well done.’

‘Yeah, well, it was more by luck than judgement, I have to say. If they hadn’t jumped at the chance of a drink I don’t know how else we could have got them to the pub.’

The pub they had gone to after the weapons demonstration had been fitted with hidden microphones and cameras and the farm workers outside had all been MI5 officers.

‘All’s well that ends well,’ she said. ‘And we now have Roger McLean in the frame and that’s priceless. They’ve already arrived back in Birmingham and we have a team on him as we speak.’

‘What about Sean?’

‘His name’s not Sean, for a start. Aidan McEvoy. Ulster Defence Association hard man. The PSNI lost sight of him a year or so ago and assumed that he was in Ireland.’

‘Why would the UDA get involved with the likes of Kettering and Thompson?’

‘We’re working on that. Might just be personal. Might be that he’s a hired hand. Of course it might also be that the UDA is connected to Breivik’s Knights Templar group, in which case we have a major problem.’

‘The UDA has plenty of arms so if they’re involved there’d be no need for them to be buying from me.’

‘That’s what we’re hoping,’ said Button. ‘A UDA lone wolf is bad enough; if the whole organisation was moving its attentions to the mainland we’d have a small war on our hands. But there’s no point in crossing bridges. We’ve got McEvoy under observation now so we’ll see where that leads us. But as far as today went, job well done.’ She ended the call.

Shepherd felt too tense to sleep. It was often that way after working undercover: the adrenaline was flowing and all his senses were on overdrive. During his undercover career he’d seen agents deal with the pressure in many different ways. Drink, drugs and gambling were easy crutches to turn to, but they’d never appealed to Shepherd. Running had always been his way of taking the edge off. Running cleared his mind, and aching muscles led more often than not to a dreamless sleep, but it was too late to go out running so he spent an hour doing sit-ups, crunches and press-ups before showering and heading to bed.

Chaudhry was sitting at the back of a lecture theatre typing notes into his laptop. There were more than a hundred students listening to the lecturer and most had laptops open in front of them, though a few were still taking notes the old-fashioned way, scribbling away on notepads. He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket as he received an SMS. He took out his phone. The message said ‘Now’ and was followed by a mobile number he didn’t recognise. It was Khalid. He changed his number every few days and changed his phone once a month. It was Friday and Chaudhry hadn’t had any contact with Khalid for over a week. Chaudhry grimaced. The door was at the front of the lecture theatre and if he left now he’d have to walk past the lecturer, a forty-something surgeon with a tongue as sharp as his scalpel. Chaudhry looked at his watch. There were only another ten minutes until the lecture would be over so he decided to wait, though he packed away his laptop and put it into his backpack. As soon as the lecturer finished, Chaudhry picked up his bike helmet and backpack and hurried out into the corridor. There were too many students around so he went along to the cafeteria, where there were only a handful of people. He took out his mobile and called the number.

‘What took you so long, brother?’ asked Khalid.